As debate continues over Nato's use in Kosovo of depleted uranium munitions, one US Gulf veteran has recalled his experiences eight years ago.

Dr Doug Rokke is assistant professor of environmental science at Jacksonville State University, Alabama. He is also a major in the US Army Reserve, and in 1991 he served in the Gulf.

His work involved helping casualties and cleaning equipment contaminated with depleted uranium (DU), used in the war in tank-busting weapons because of its high density.

"The shell would hit an armoured vehicle", Dr Rokke told BBC Radio 4's Costing the Earth programme. "The uranium would catch fire and split into burning fragments".

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About 70% of the round vaporised into dust, as fine as talcum powder.

"When we climbed into vehicles after they'd been hit, no matter what time of day or night it was, you couldn't see three feet in front of you. You breathed in that dust."

Although the British Ministry of Defence and the Pentagon insist that DU weapons pose no special risk, Dr Rokke and some other veterans believe the munitions have made them ill, and that they also threaten civilians.

Two of Dr Rokke's clean-up team of about 15 people are now dead, he said.

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"It's very hard to look back at all those years of recommending medical care, and yet two of your best friends are dead because you assigned them to do a job."

He was tested for uranium poisoning while working as head of a Pentagon project on DU in late 1994.

"In September 1996 I was at the Pentagon, briefing on DU contamination and management.